


Rhett and Link in Cinderella

by orphan_account



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Cinderella - Freeform, Fairy Tales, M/M, the Brothers Grimm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-12
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-12-14 08:10:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11778984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: A retelling of Cinderella.





	Rhett and Link in Cinderella

There was a man in France who was very rich. He had a wife and a single son, Charles Lincoln Neal III, who he named for himself so that when he died, he could take over his business empire. 

One day the rich man’s wife, Charles’ mother, became very ill. After a short time it became clear that she was going to die. So she called  her son to her and told him, “Have courage and be kind, and our dear God will always protect you. I will always look down from heaven and always be near you.” With that, she died. 

The son was good. He visited his mother’s grave every day. Winter came and passed, and his father took another wife.

The wife had two daughters. The daughters were very beautiful but very evil in their hearts, corrupt and cruel. 

“Why should you be allowed to eat with us?” one of the daughters snarled at Charles on day at breakfast. “You’re nothing but a servant. If you want bread you will have to work for it. Out with you!” And they cast him out of the kitchen. 

They took their beautiful clothes and stained them, going to their mother and crying, “Mother, look what the boy has done to our clothes! He has no taste and no manners. He should not have handsome things!” They gave Charles wooden shoes and rags to wear and took his handsome clothes and sewed new garments of their own from them. 

Charles was good and kind, and did what they asked of him, every day making fires, breakfast, cooking, washing. The sisters pointed and laughed, saying, “Look at this handsome prince! Look how handsome he is!” Then they would walk away laughing and smirking to themselves at their cruelty. 

One day the father went to the fair. Before going, he asked the daughters what they would like from the fair.

“A beautiful dress,” said the first.

“Jewelry,” said the second.

“What about you, Charles?” The father asked.

“Father, bring me the first twig that brushes you on your way home.” Charles replied.

The father did what the daughters had asked, buying a beautiful dress and a beautiful necklace. On his way home, a branch from a hazel tree brushed him, and he snapped it off and brought it back to Charles. 

Charles thanked him. He then went to his mother’s grave, where he planted the twig. He then began to weep from all the hardship the sisters had put upon him and wept so much that the branch grew into a tree. Charles visited the tree every day - three times a day. He would pray every day, and cry. Every time he did this a white dove would come to the tree and allow Charles to make a wish. Every time Charles made a wish, whatever he wished for would be thrown down to him by the dove.

Soon after this the king of the land declared that he was having a festival. The festival would be a grand one, lasting three days. All the beautiful young girls of the land were invited so that the prince might choose a bride. Charles went to the tree and wept, for he felt that he would love the prince and the prince would love him, if only the two were given a chance to be together. He wept, for he was not a girl. How could he gain the love of the prince if he was not a girl? Charles cried every day leading up to the festival, unsure of what he could wish for that would make the prince love him.

The two stepsisters saw that they had been invited and called for Charles. “Comb our hair for us. Brush our shoes and fasten our buckles. We are going to the king’s festival at the castle.”

Charles obeyed, but wept, wishing to go along with them. He begged his stepmother for permission to go.

“Why would you want to go to a ball?” The stepmother threw her head back and laughed. “You do not have clothes or shoes. Yet you want to dance among girls!”

Charles kept asking, and finally the stepmother told him, “I have scattered lentils into a bowl of ashes. If you can pick them out in two hours, you may go with us.”

Charles went out into the garden and sang out, “Oh beautiful doves, oh sweet pigeons, all wonderful birds below the clouds, come help me gather the good ones into the pot, the bad ones in your crop.”

Two white turtledoves came in through the kitchen window, then two white pigeons, then all manner of birds under the clouds, and lit around the ashes. The birds began to pick, pick, pick at the ashes and the lentils. They gathered all the good grain into the bowls. Before half an hour had passed, the birds were finished, and flew out again through the window. The boy happily took the two bowls to his stepmother.

But the stepmother shook her head. “Give up, child. You have no clothes and you don’t know how to dance. You can’t come with us.” With that, she turned away from her stepson and hurried off to the festival with her daughters. 

With no one else home, Charles ran out to the haze tree. He called out, “Shake and shiver, little tree. Rain gold down upon me.” 

The dove flew down and threw a golden suit down at Charles, along with a golden mask. He went and put them on, rushing off to the festival.

The prince was a very tall man, and very bored by the women surrounding him and ogling him. He wished for something more, someone who made him feel more like the love he was expected to feel. His servants shoved beautiful woman after beautiful woman at him, but he felt nothing. He looked up and saw a beautiful man with a golden mask and a golden suit and felt instantly smitten. He fought his way through the crowd and walked up to Charles, bowing before him and offering him his hand. The two danced all night, catching everyone’s eye with the golden glint of Charles’ suit. 

Charles and the prince danced all evening, and then Charles said he needed to go home. The prince said, “I will escort you.” The prince wanted to see whose family this handsome young man belonged to. However Charles was quick and evaded him, jumping into the pigeon coop. The prince waited until the father came to the door, and then told him that he had been following a handsome young man but the man had jumped into the pigeon coop. 

The old man wondered if it was Charles. He had his servants bring an ax so they could take apart the coop and see what was inside, but they were disappointed to see that it was empty. When they found Charles, he was lying in ashes in his filthy clothes. He had escaped through the window of the coop and gone to the hazel tree, where he had changed back into his rags. 

The next day when the festival began again, Charles ran out to the tree and sang, “Shake and shiver, little tree. Rain gold and silver down on me.”

The dove threw down a suit and a mask that was even more astonishing and beautiful than it had been the day before. When Charles made his entrance into the festival everyone stammered at how beautiful he was. The prince immediately saw him and made his way to him. When others asked to dance with the prince, the prince said no, telling them “he is my dance partner.”

“What is the name of my dance partner?” Charles asked when the third girl was turned away. He was in awe of the prince. 

“I am Rhett, of the McLaughlin kingdom.” The prince answered. “Please, pray tell me your name to-day?”

But Charles had to be getting home. He did not answer the prince and instead evaded him once again. Rhett followed, wanting to see again what family this man came from. He ran away from the prince to the garden behind the house. There was a tall pear tree there, and Charles climbed nimbly up the branches. The prince did not know what to make of this. He waited for the father to come home and then told him, “There is a handsome young man who has eluded me. I believe he has climbed up the pear tree.”

The old man wondered again if it was his son. He brought an ax to the tree and chopped it down, but there was no Charles in it. Once again he had escaped, climbing down the back of the tree. When they found him he was asleep in his filthy clothes once more, in the ashes.

On the third and last day of the festival, Charles went to the tree and once again sang out, “Shake and shiver, little tree. Rain gold, silver, and bronze down on me.”

The dove threw down a suit and mask that was the most astonishing of all that had ever been given to Charles. Charles put them on and went to the festival. He once again spent all day dancing with the prince. When it was evening and Charles wished to go home, the prince reached out and took his mask. Charles and the prince looked at each other for a moment and then Charles fled, making his way home, weeping for fear he’d been exposed as a fraud and the prince would find out he was a lowly servant.

The prince made note of Charles’ eyes, which were of the brightest blue. He noted how the mask had perfectly fit his face. He told his servant, who declared his words to the rest of the kingdom, “I will marry the man whose face fits this mask. Only one man will fit it in the whole kingdom, and I will have no one else for husband or wife.”

The two sisters were happy to hear this, for they believed that their beauty would be more important than whether or not the mask perfectly fit. The prince went from house to house, seeing who the mask fit. When he came upon Charles’ house, the two step daughters greeted him eagerly at the door. 

The first daughter tried to put on the mask. She frowned and cried, for her nose was too large. “It’s not fair!” She yelled. “My nose is just right!” She cried.

The second daughter went to try on the mask but her nose would not fill it. “My nose is just right!” She cried. “It isn’t fair!” She whined.

“May I try it on?” Charles asked from the doorway. He walked up to the prince’s servant and asked for the mask. 

“You will get it dirty.” The servant said, looking him up and down. “You are just a servant. How dare you suggest you were at the festival.” Charles turned away from him, but not before the prince had caught his eyes. 

“Wait!” The prince shouted. Everyone was still. “Turn around.”

Charles obeyed, but kept his eyes on the floor.

“Look up at me.” The prince commanded. 

Charles did so, looking up at the very tall, very handsome prince Rhett. The prince stared at him. He took the mask from his servant and slowly fit it onto Charles’ face. It was a perfect match. 

“I remember your eyes.” The prince said. He smiled. “May I take you as my husband?”

“You may.” Charles said. 

The two were to be married. Charles told the prince his full name. The prince asked, “May I call you Link?” Charles said yes, and it was so. Rhett and Link ruled the kingdom for many years and lived happily ever after. 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments give me life.


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